micro
S K Y F A R M
GALLERY
Introducing the farm-fresh fynart of Gretchen
Wheeler and her micro-gallery in Knysna.
This artist’s gallery is inspired and exists
because of Skyfarm - a fynbos farm, poised
lightly on an ancient sand dune overlooking
Knysna's circuitous tidal lagoon. It is easy to
guess that Skyfarm harvests sunlight and
rain water, farming the sky in short.
It is here living, completely off-grid as a
Skyfarmer, where Gretchen germinates and
produces her fyn art, fynbos oil paintings.
Gretchen Wheeler was born in South Africa
in 1967 and wanted to paint. She painted
ridiculously large human figures for her
matric exhibition in 1985 and won the art
prize. Encouraged possibly by this, or
maybe just determined, she chose to study
a 4 year Fine Arts honours degree at
The University of Kwazulu-Natal, where she
graduated in 1989, majoring in painting.
A whirl of years passed where she painted
and painted while she made her artistic
talents work for her as a corporate and free-
lance designer, art director for a
architectural magazine and teacher,
adapting her academic education to the
practical business world.
1040 x 1300
1040 x 1300
AFTER THE GLOW
AFTER THE RAIN
On Skyfarm, the Restios, that overlook the
Knysna lagoon, glisten with the thrill of the
recent rain.
The earth still hums with the blush of the sun, after its
gone. The warmth vibrates in the fynbos.
910 + 910 x 1220
A PERFECT DAY
“
With the move to Skyfarm in 2022, living off-grid and
working in a home with glass for walls allowing
endless views over fynbos thickets onto the Knysna
lagoon, vlei and beach, the lessons from nature were
clear. “When you have something to share, you need
to get it out there.”
Farm life sparked a new era in her focus and the decision to share her work. When a
perfect boutique gallery space materialised in Knysna town the nascent ‘SKYFARM
micro-GALLERY’ bloomed.
Her work is an ode to the threatened Knysna Sand Fynbos which is in abundance on
the farm. You are invited to view her art pieces where you too can share in her
wonderment of this unique place we get to call ‘home’.
When you rely on the sky to provide power and water to
live, this a perfect day, a monkey’s wedding, rain and
sun at the same time. Happiness.
A visitor has to be quite determined if they want to come to, and for that
matter, leave the farm. Having a gallery in Knysna town allows her to
present her painting ‘produce’ to you in an approachable and accessible
way, while being true to self - an artist.
1370 x 970
NASCENT
1010 x 770
WILL IT RAIN?
In the beginning, you will find a
dream.
Nascent meaning...especially of a
process or organization just
coming into existence and
beginning to display signs of
future potential.
In the artist’s words, “I dare to pretend that Wendell Berry's
poem, , written back in 1968, was
penned especially for me. The words express some of the
reasons 'why' I share my painting produce and my
enchantment and dedication to the wilds of Knysna.”
The peace of wild things
930 x 790
300 x 300
WENDELL BERRY
SPRING ON SKY 2023
EBB AND FLOW
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty
on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things,
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Every year, in September I paint my spring
painting where I portray the beauty of the
‘new’. The fragrance and flamboyant joy of
a new start, its definitely not ‘blue’.
There is a unmistakable link between the wild
expression of fynbos and the sleek sheet of
the serpentine lagoon.
1000 x 1000
765 x 1017
OUBAITORI
METROPOLIS
SKYFARM micro-GALLERY
4 Gray Street, Knysna
Call Gretchen on +27 82 930 8484
skyfarmknysna@gmail.com
www.skyfarmknysna.com
skyfarm_micro_gallery
Plan your gallery viewing between
10 and 1 on Tuesday, Thursday or Friday.
Gretchen’s work is also on exhibition at
The Turbine Hotel, on Thesen Island, Knysna
A dense cluster of Restios and Pincushions
provide a sanctuary for many a lightfoot.
Inspired by a gnarly grove of coastal
Camphors, that survived the devastating 2017
Knysna fires, on Skyfarm and the ancient
Japanese idiom.
